Wealthy More App-t to Be Serious With Their Apps

A group has released findings about the wealthy and their approach to social media and the use of apps. It appears that there might be a reason why they are more wealthy than others. Apparently they don’t play idiotic time suck games and they also aren’t very prone to tweet.

Wealthier smartphone users are less likely to play games or tweet and will opt for news, travel or finance apps, according to a new study.

The research by The Luxury Institute focused on app usage among wealthy consumers, who earn an annual income of $150,000 or more. They tend to be older, with a mean age of 52.

“As you get older and have family and significant others, aging parents, and a lot more assets and investments, you’re going to need apps for far more relevant things than playing games and chatting with your peers,” said Milton Pedraza, CEO of The Luxury Institute.

Hopefully this doesn’t surprise anyone. You know all those hours that people spend “being social” or doing the latest cool thing online? Well, how is it any different, in an overall sense, than hours spent in front of the TV? It’s dumb down time. Most people who spend a fair amount of time around meaningless games and apps are not likely to be doing the things required to be wealthy. There’s nothing wrong with that unless of course those who are spending their time on games etc start to complain that they too should be wealthy. Doesn’t work that way, thankfully.

Wealthier folks tend to gravitate toward the iPhone platform more as well which also goes against the current trending of Android OS phones outpacing activations of iPhones.

Forty-five percent of wealthy smartphone users own an iPhone, followed 35 percent with an Android device and a quarter who had a Blackberry. But Nielsen found that overall Android had 46 percent of market share, followed by the iPhone with 30 percent and Blackberry with 15 percent.

“Google’s strategy with Android is that they have multiple manufacturing partners,” explained Jonathan Carson, the CEO of digital at Nielsen. “There’s a broader choice with Android in the number of devices, and that may offer some opportunities for lower-end consumers.”

He added that the iPhone has always done quite well with high-income consumers.

That makes sense as well since Apple products can appear pricey next to many lower cost Android options.

So what’s this mean for marketers? It all depends on who you are marketing to. If you are looking to reach the affluent you may want to scrap that idea to create a game to promote your product.

Are you paying close enough attention to the needs and desires of your target audience? Have you wondered why doing some things that “everyone is doing” did not yield the results you had forecast? While it’s always been crucial for marketers to address different market segments in different ways it has NEVER been more important than now. Consumers have more opportunities to more granularly define themselves and their habits. What social media is used and how it is used is the fine tuning element of any marketers’ efforts to reach their true target market.

Why is that? Sometimes it the expression of what one WON’T do on social media that tells us more about them than what they will do. Hmmmm, maybe less really is more!